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15 January, 2013

Thailand: From Insanity to Tranquility (Tuesday)

Our flight was scheduled for noon, which set us up for a
reasonably leisurely morning, though there was not a lot of time to spare,
since they recommended leaving for the airport 2.5 hours before scheduled flight
time, just in case traffic was bad. This turned out, in every case, to be a
gross overestimation of required time, but I imagine the hotels would never
want to give a bad suggestion in this area, leading to a guest missing a
flight, so they err on extreme side of caution.

When we awoke, there was a note under our door, indicating
we had a missed call/message the previous day. The call was apparently from our
good friend, the tailor. First off, I didn’t want to deal with it right now.
Second, I didn’t want to deal with it right now. So I didn’t. I figured I would
call him back later, perhaps when we got to Khao Lak. Perhaps when we got back
to Bangkok. Perhaps never?

It was a relief that our taxi driver seemed to be on the
up-and-up, turning on his meter, no obvious shenanigans. Though, we were
confused on the ride there because the highway system is extremely difficult to
comprehend. First of all, the fact that cars drive on the opposite side of the
road is endlessly disorienting to us. For instance, when you are in the far
right lane, you are in the passing lane.
I don’t think we would ever get used to that. In fact, we both commented to
each other several times that we could not have imagined needing to drive in
Bangkok. Forget it. The other big challenge, of course, is the fact that the
road signs are almost entirely in Thai. This will be punctuated, occasionally,
with maybe one sign that is in English, for the extremely urgent pieces of
information, like “AIRPORT.” But my guess is that, if we were actually driving,
those few messages would be insufficient to help one be in the correct lane to
make such exits. When he finally took the exit for the airport, which,
paradoxically seemed to be the exit toward the direction that did not say “Airport,” we drove for quite a
ways on increasingly industrial, progressively more vacant roadways. Of course,
we’re starting to wonder where the heck we are going. We knew that Don Mueang
was “The Old Airport,” but not “The Abandoned Airport.” After about 5 more
minutes, we are clearly in the vicinity of the airport, because there are
parking garages, and signs for departures and arrivals, but no cars. The road
continues all the way past and around the real estate that seemed like it might
be the airport, then loops back and winds its way up some roads that were
clearly designed by crazy people, illogical, inefficient. Finally, we emerge
from this maze at the departures terminal, where there are suddenly lots of cars. Perhaps we were taken on
the long way around to run up a little more meter? Who knows. It was only about
200 BHT to get there, so we weren’t going to sweat it. There is no other way to
describe the inside of this airport than “clusterfuck.” There was a very short
line, immediately upon entering, where your bag was x-rayed. This created the
illusion of a streamlined process. But what really happens is that we were then
dumped into a free-for-all long, winding, line, without any signs indicating
where the end of the line was, for checking in to AirAsia.com. As an aside, I will
note that, for some reason, it makes me uneasy that an airline has “.com” as
part of its official name, actually painted on the side of the airplanes. Call
me crazy, but I prefer that companies that fly airplanes have a foremost
presence of the “physical world” and that their online presence is merely a
supporting aspect. Seeing “.com” on the airplane somehow makes me think that
maybe they hired the pilots via online signups. Like I said… call me crazy.

After standing in the insane line for 5 minutes, we realized
we were not at the start of the insane line, and wandered and wove our way back
to the real end of the line, which had probably doubled in its tail since we
were standing in the wrong place. Others had to follow us, having made the same
error. The only consolation was the fact that we were two hours early for the
flight. We made it through security, and were happy to discover a Starbucks in
the terminal. I think I have noted elsewhere that, while Starbucks may be a
corporate evil of some form, they are also an oasis when traveling in remote
places like Bangkok or Minneapolis, when you need coffee. It seems like we must
have also hunted for some type of food, and I remember wandering around trying
to find snacks. But I’m not sure we found anything. At the gate, with lots of
time to spare, we were momentarily excited to discover that the terminal had
“free wireless” internet. But, it turned out, the only people who could use it
were those who were traveling on “Nok Airlines.” This airline paints their
planes so they actually look like cartoon ducks, including a beak on the front
of the aircraft. It’s not an actual beak protruding past the front of the
aircraft, but a likeness of a beak on the existing nose of the aircraft. This
instills even less confidence than having “.com” on the side of the plane, but
maybe I’m crazy. I just want my aircraft to be taking itself seriously. So we
had no internet. The airplane itself was quite nice, and not uncomfortable.
Considering that Asians tend to be smaller than Westerners, it really says
something that AirAsia(.com) provides more legroom than United Airlines. The
recorded flight safety instructions were delivered in two voices: one was a
very formal British sounding man. The other was a woman’s voice that kept
wavering between sounding Australian and German (South African?). Odd. I don’t
know. Why am I telling you this?

It’s a short flight. Barely an hour, so we were there quite
quickly. The approach into Phuket International Airport was kind of pretty. The
plane crosses over water first, the Gulf of Thailand. Then it crosses land, and
eventually shoots out to the Andaman Sea to make a turn and come back in for
landing. We could see the beautiful turquoise water below, while approaching
the shoreline. Finding a taxi to Khao Lak, which is over an hour drive, was no
problem. Though, once again, I made the foolish mistake of not having come
equipped with an address for the driver (what made me think these drivers would
know where everything was located). They don’t have GPS, usually, so the
chances of them finding anything they don’t already know about is very slim.
Our driver was a very friendly young guy, who knew quite a bit of English, and
he stopped at a gas station part way there and called a friend who gave him
directions to the hotel we were staying at, the Khao Lak Riverside Resort and
Spa. The ride north from the airport took almost an hour and a half. He did
drive fast, and reasonably recklessly. But, compared to Bangkok standards, and
with the much sparser traffic in this area, the ride was relaxing and safe.
Compared to Bangkok, again, the scenery was completely different. We passed
fields, followed by forest, rural scenery, occasional small towns with shops
and restaurants, animals in the fields. A much different view of Thailand than
what we’d seen in the city. It was really like two separate vacations.

As we got nearer to our destination, it became evident that
“Khao Lak” is spread out across a few separate towns over about an 8-10 mile
span of the highway. All three of these towns will refer to themselves as Khao
Lak, when it comes to tourist information you’ll find online. But only one of
the three is Khao Lak proper (the southern-most one, I believe). There’s not
much of a consequence of this, other than it means one needs to take a taxi for
about 300 BHT ($10) if you want to visit either of the other two Khao Laks.
After branching off the highway (which is really just a
2-lane road) down a narrow side street, we started to feel like we were likely
to get lost, but somehow the driver got us to our destination, stopping briefly
to ask out the window to someone for further direction. We arrived at Khao Lak
Riverside resort, and it was just like the pictures on Trip Advisor. A very
European-style establishment, with a main building containing a common dining
area, in an open-air environment, and then a separate building that contained
what must have been maybe 16 units? I really have to share a picture with you,
because I don’t think it will be possible to appreciate the place without
seeing it.

We were greeted by one of the hosts, Markus, a German man
who looked to be in his late 50s or early 60s, with a gray pony tail. I might
as well show you a picture of him too.

He welcomed us, formally, and asked us the standard check-in
questions, and where are we from, etc. When we told him, he noted that there
were an unusually high number of Americans staying there at this time. It
seems, from our subsequent info, that it was mostly Europeans staying there.
Without much ado, he led us back to our room, and gave us a tour of the room
and its amenities, including some suggestions and guidelines. Very formal. The room
had lots of dark wood, which really was reminiscent of places I stayed in
Germany. The doors were narrow, tall wooden doors, with small dark metal knobs.
The “king-size” bed actually is comprised of two double beds adjacent within a
single large frame. That was standard protocol in all the hotels I visited in
Germany. We would repeatedly joke that we weren’t even staying in Thailand. We were
staying in a German outpost on a Thai beach.

Markus also introduced us to his colleague, Bruno, another
German. He was a little more laid back than Markus, but still I must say that I
felt immediately slightly uneasy around both of them. For kicks, here’s a photo
of Bruno, since I have decided now’s the time for photos of everyone (I’m just
snatching these from the internet, violating all sorts of copyrights).

During check-in, we asked Markus if there were any
restaurants he could recommend. This was the first of the strange awkwardness
that would ultimately color our impression of the experience. His response was
that he wasn’t really familiar with any of the restaurants in the area, except
for what his guests tell him, but that he could recommend his wife’s Thai
restaurant on the beach about 10 minutes away, and that they would happily take
us there in their own private Tuk Tuk. So, there were two pieces of this which
were strange. First, how can someone live in a small “village” and have no
familiarity with the restaurants in the area? Second, although he said the only
info he had was from his guests, he did not even hint at being willing to offer
that information which his guests apparently give him. In other words, he wants
his guests to eat at his wife’s restaurant. Seemed weird and rigid, but we
actually decided to take him up on the offer, if for no other reason than it
might have actually been great, as had all of our prior dining experiences. So
we said yes and, after settling in with our bags briefly, we headed to the
lobby and they arranged a ride up the road for us to the restaurant.

It was a 5 minute ride down a quiet, tree-lined road. We
were greeted by two friendly dogs who ran out to the street, excited to see us.
They were followed by a Thai woman, calling after the dogs, and apologizing to
us for their behavior, which wasn’t really a problem at all. We deduced that
this must be Markus’s wife. She brought us in to her restaurant, which
consisted of a covered porch for dining, facing the beach, but set back quite a
distance from the water. There was a main building where I guess the cooking
took place. Almost immediately upon arrival, we noticed a tiny creature on the
ground, against the wall of the house. At first it looked like a kitten, but it
turned out to be a puppy, clearly from one of the dogs who greeted us. It was
extremely young, maybe 6 weeks or so, and it could barely walk. There would be
petting, but not yet. Must resist for now.

Having been in Thailand for a whopping 72 hours without
getting ill, we both ordered Thai iced coffee. Still I don’t know why we were
so confident. We also ordered Fried Spring Rolls, Red Curry, and Tom Ka Gai.
The coffee arrived, and it was horrible. I most certainly could not be
classified as “Thai” iced coffee. It could best be described as weak coffee
ice, and a small amount of milk. Not a good sign. Next came the spring rolls
which, you’ll be surprised to hear, were probably the best spring rolls I had
eaten in my entire life, up to that point. So, at that point, we were in a
state of mixed reviews, and unclear expectation of what would come next. Sure
enough, what came next were two dishes that looked identical: (1) a bowl of
orange, soup-like substance, the Tom Ka Gai, and (2) a bowl of orange,
soup-like substance, the Red Curry. They both looked identical and had the
exact same consistency. I have had curries in the past which have been on the
“soupier” side. And those tend to be at places that don’t serve good curries. I
thought it was acceptable, but if you went to a hospital cafeteria and received
this, you’d probably have said “It’s pretty good for a hospital cafeteria.” I
didn’t try the soup, but word on the street is that it was “not good.” I
believe the exact quote was “This is not good.”

While we were eating, a group of four Americans, in their
late 50s (or early 60s?) also arrived at the restaurant (they were sent here by
Markus, too, of course). They were very friendly, and introduced themselves,
and we chatted quite a bit. I think at least two of them were from Minneapolis.
Apparently, this was their second time at the restaurant, because they’d been
the previous day, and they absolutely loved it. Of course, our interpretation
of that was “Minnesotans wouldn’t know good Thai food if they were being cooked
into the dishes themselves.” One of the women, the friendliest one, acquired
the puppy and was holding it for a good part of the meal. The puppy was just
lying there in her arms sleeping. Eventually, she put the puppy down, at which
time, I decided to take a turn with the puppy. It was so tiny, and it had
clearly been weaned too soon, because it was attempting to suck on my finger. A
good time was had by all.
One of the adult dogs started barking for whatever reason,
the way dogs sometimes get the idea in their head that they must bark.
Markus’s wife ran over and chastised the dog in a lengthy discussion in Thai.
She made several mock-threatening gestures while yelling, playfully, at the
dog, who had collapsed into the sand and was acting completely submissive.
Everyone at the restaurant and the neighboring massage stand was laughing,
because it was rather entertaining.

Eventually it became time to go. There was an option of
walking back along the beach, which was tempting, but the tide was in pretty
far, and we weren’t dressed for going waist deep, at that point. So we opted to
walk along the road a little way, after which we identified another opportunity
to go down toward the beach, which we took. We walked into the water, and it
was like a bathtub. It had to have been around 82-84 degrees. It is said that
the water in the Andaman doesn’t go much above 84 degrees, so this had to be
that. I have not experienced ocean water warmer than this. Our trek back was
through the hot sun. We may or may not have put on any sunblock, so we were
walking back consciously aware that we didn’t want to spend too much time in
the hot sun. There were people playing in the water, and lying on the sand.
There were massage stands with people being massaged in the shade. There were
beachfront cafes and bars with a few people here and there. After walking a
little while, we started to realize that we didn’t really know where the turn
was to head away from the beach to our hotel. It was set back from the shore
quite a distance, and everything along the entire beach looked the same. As we
wandered aimlessly, we passed by a massage stand, in thatched huts, and they
called out to us “You want massage?!” What the hell… yes, we do. We requested,
once again, the 30 minutes of foot/leg plus 30 minutes of shoulder and back.
These massages were not as good as the ones in Bangkok, but you can never
really complain about having someone massage you for roughly $10 an hour.

The sun was just beginning its earnest descent, as we were
finishing up the massage. There was probably still another hour or so of light,
but the clouds to the west made for early colors in the sky. We could see the
light through the trees inland, and figured out where our hotel was. But it was
not a straight shot to get there, because there were all sorts of obstacles: a
dirt parking lot with motorbikes, a fence, a river, capsized boats, etc. We
finally figured out where the actual path was, and then it was an easy enough 3
minute walk to the back of the hotel grounds.

I wanted to check out the swimming pool before commencing
our evening activities, whatever those would turn out to be. The water in this
pool was extremely warm, because it was fully exposed to the sunlight, and
positioned in such a way that it would virtually never be in shadow of
anything. I’m not sure it was as warm as the ocean, surprisingly, but it was
more than warm enough. There were only two other people in the pool. One was an
American in his twenties. The other was a middle-aged European man with a
barrel chest, and scraggly hair. I couldn’t place his accent. It was something
eastern. Romanian? Greek? Russian? Polish? I wasn’t really sure. He was telling
stories, and the American was mostly listening. He was talking about the old
days. Something about a rock club, and a DJ, and a sound system, and technical
problems. And then it moved to discussing unemployment in Europe. And then it
moved to discussing people and culture in general in Europe. He was doing 99%
of the talking, and you could tell he enjoyed listening to himself pontificate.
He spent a fair amount of time disparaging upon Romania, which threw me off a
bit, because I think he may have actually been Romanian, and was trash-talking
his own country. Otherwise, he was pretty racist.

After swimming around for a while, I got out. I think Melissa had been showering, or maybe she was by the pool watching it all. Yes,
I think that’s what it was. But I don’t recall if she got in the pool this time
or not. We took some pictures of the sunset, which I think I posted on
Facebook, so I won’t post them again here. Apologies to the few random readers
who stumble upon this and don’t have the photos available. Then I took some
time-lapse photos of myself while waiting for her to shower. This is what weird
people do when they have free time.

At some point that day, I can’t remember when, we had “Weird
Encounter #2” with Markus. We went to the lobby and asked him if we could
please have the English version of the hotel pamphlet with the guest
information, since our room had been stocked with the German version. And there
was some other issue that arose, where we needed to ask for Bruno’s help
figuring out how to do something in the room, which ended up being obvious, and
I think we figured it out. I don’t know. I pretty much just felt like an idiot
every time I spoke with them. Asking for the English version of the info
resulted in us getting a look like we are stupid, pain-in-the-neck Americans.

During whatever interactions we had, it was also mentioned
that on a couple of nights, the hotel hosts a Thai dinner, for something like
500 BHT per person, or maybe even more. Might have been 650 BHT. That might not
sound like much ($15-20) but it was wildly out of whack with the price of food at
any or all restaurants we’d seen during our entire trip. Given that Markus had
already, in a sense, “tourist-trapped” us into his wife’s crappy restaurant, we
pretty much decided that we were not going to get “on board” with any more of
his “recommendations.” I suspect that our avoidance of these dinners
contributed to the generally cold reception we received from him, progressively
more so each day.

So, for dinner, we wandered on foot into the nearest portion
of the town, about a 10 minute walk along a couple of quiet roads. It was dark,
but there were a fair number of streetlights. I think we’d brought a flashlight
in case, but it wasn’t really required. As we passed by various shops,
particularly the “fashion tailors,” we were accosted, albeit in friendly
fashion, with the various shop owners beseeching us to come and let them fit us
for something. Nope. Not gonna happen. We’d read online about the various
restaurant options, and one that had sounded pretty good was called “Green
Pepper,” so we sought it out, and found it without too much difficulty. It was
another open-air restaurant with a large thatched roof. There was mostly
covered dining, but some uncovered tables as well. It was crowded, which seemed
to be a good sign.
We ordered our meals, which included some type of apple
salad, Panang curry (of course), and I think she had some type of noodle
dish. There were many different servers, and two of them had badges that said “trainee.”
One of the trainees was a young girl who was probably only 14 or 15 years old.
She was mostly wandering around cluelessly, and not really helping anyone. She
smiled a lot, made mistakes, dropped things, and followed other servers around.
After we ordered, about ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Then thirty. Nobody
was coming to our table, and no food was arriving. The problem was there was a
table of about 20 people, with 16 children, who had arrived probably just
before us, and the kitchen was completely overwhelmed with their order. We (and
others) had to wait until that entire party was served before any of our meals
would be prepared. When it got to be close to 45 minutes, I guess enough of the
staff had noticed that it was getting awkward. One of the servers who seemed to
be in charge came over and apologized, and promised us rather frantically that
our food would be coming very soon. We didn’t really care that much about the
wait, other than because we were hungry. But it’s not like we were in a hurry
to be anywhere.
After a little more delay, the food finally arrived, and it
was, once again, amazing. We had half expected it to be mediocre, given the
fact that they seemed to also cater to non-Thai cuisines (the menu was about
50% Thai dishes, and 50% more Western or German themed items like schnitzel).
But it was really good and everyone there was extremely nice.

After dinner, we wandered around a tiny bit, part of the way
along the section of road we hadn’t yet visited to see if there were any
interesting shops. There really weren’t. Just a few quiet touristy stands
selling the standard clothing, t-shirts, trinkets. We were tired and eventually
walked back to the hotel.
I don’t even know if I stayed awake for 10 minutes
before I was unconscious.